Gabrielle moves South East

Just another 12 hours or so of wind and rain for us up here in the Upper North of Northland. We have been safe and well for the duration of the storm.

If you see a flooded BP station in any news videos, that gas/petrol station is just a short walk down river from Town Basin Marina where we are spending the strong weather. It is known to be vulnerable even in less extreme weather. Ditto the riverside walkway.

Whangarei Flooding

This was High water yesterday.  Water rises as the tide comes in, and recedes as it good out. Inland areas that have flooded won’t be so fortunate.

The worst of the rain is over for us and the wind will die down in another 12 hours or so. Southern and southeastern areas of the North Island with have continuing wind and rain until Garbrielle moves farther offshore.

Often these storms, which form in the Coral Sea off Brisbane, Australia, particularly in an La Niña year pass New Zealand with little affect.  We still have a big High pressure off to the southeast which is to blame for blocking the storm from heading east and passing over the top of New Zealand. Instead, it was direct south and it will affect southern and eastern areas for some time yet.

There is still a lot of flooding and power outages in Northland but we do have sunny days ahead that will help the situation enormously.